S04.E05: Human Resources

[jewel21]

Quote

Owen helps defend Marjan when a rescue complaint forces her to make a challenging ethical decision. Grace befriends a young boy who becomes a frequent 9-1-1 caller, but when she discovers he may be in some real danger she must step in.

Airdate: 02/21/2023

[Athena5217]

I hope this is not goodbye for Marjan. She is the ONLY female firefighter on the show, and one of the few Muslim female characters on network TV. I suspect she will return to save the day when new recurring villain does whatever horrible thing he is planning, and the Fire Department will be eager to reinstate her because she will be a big hero.

I have never heard of Grace’s trick of multiplying 7 to the tune of Happy Birthday. Some Googling revealed to me that there is an entire playlist for multiplication tables. 

[DanaK]

9 hours ago, Athena5217 said:

I hope this is not goodbye for Marjan. She is the ONLY female firefighter on the show, and one of the few Muslim female characters on network TV. I suspect she will return to save the day when new recurring villain does whatever horrible thing he is planning, and the Fire Department will be eager to reinstate her because she will be a big hero.

I have never heard of Grace’s trick of multiplying 7 to the tune of Happy Birthday. Some Googling revealed to me that there is an entire playlist for multiplication tables. 

I don’t think I’ve heard multiplying to the tune of Happy Birthday, but Schoolhouse Rock did a few tunes for math

[KeithJ]

It sounds like she'll be back but I still don't buy the story line.  The apology she gave them should have been good enough (I don't even think it was necessary though).  Even if they insisted on a public apology, I could see her doing that and the department backing that.  However, as soon as they wanted her to promote their $750,000 GoFundMe, I don't think the department would have been behind that at all.

[marceline]

I'm not going to miss Marjan. She works my nerves. That said I'm guessing she'll be back when that squirrelly guy sets another fire.

[iMonrey]

Quote

Even if they insisted on a public apology, I could see her doing that and the department backing that.  However, as soon as they wanted her to promote their $750,000 GoFundMe, I don't think the department would have been behind that at all.

Yeah, this was a stretch, even for this show. There's no way the AFD would force an employee to promote a GoFundMe campaign, that's all kinds of legal trouble for them. The real AFD should rightly cry foul over this one.

Also, they are teetering dangerously close to sainthood with Grace knowing intuitively there's something going on at Linus's house and going to investigate in person and saving the day. 

Were we meant to understand that the HR lady was also transgendered?

[Bruinsfan]

I didn't get that impression, but that she'd considered Paul very appealing in his former identity when they were classmates and his transition hadn't changed her feelings at all. If so, I say yay—Paul could do with some more story focus.

[possibilities]

16 hours ago, Athena5217 said:

Some Googling revealed to me that there is an entire playlist for multiplication tables. 

I wish I had known about that when I was in school!

 

I imagine the Firefox followers will rise up and pressure the Dept to reinstate Marjan. I also agree that they wouldn't force her to promote the GoFundMe. The legal case those grifters were threatening struck me as very weak, and it's also a bad precedent to set up the entire Dept for extortion over and over again if they don't fight it. 

[tennisgurl]

So Marjan finally gets some screen time, and its all to write her off the show? Maybe? I am not so sure she's gone for real, I suspect that she'll come back in time to save the day when this creepy guy strikes. I hope its not the end of her character, she has so much potential as a character but she so rarely gets to explore that potential because the show spends all of its time on Owen fighting villains and lots of soap opera drama involving Owen's family.  

I don't buy that the AFD would totally throw Marjan under the bus for such an obvious cash grab. Wouldn't they be worried that they would be opening themselves up to more crap like this if they rolled over and gave these obvious money seekers what they want? I know that its only because its what has to happen to move the plot, but it didn't have to be this stupid. 

Good for Paul getting a love interest, hopefully this means he might actually get a plot soon. 

Grace was really sweet with that kid, although I thought that the mom would turn out to be an alcoholic not that she was having seizers. 

[shapeshifter]

6 hours ago, KeithJ said:

It sounds like she'll be back but I still don't buy the story line.  The apology she gave them should have been good enough (I don't even think it was necessary though).  Even if they insisted on a public apology, I could see her doing that and the department backing that.  However, as soon as they wanted her to promote their $750,000 GoFundMe, I don't think the department would have been behind that at all.

5 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Yeah, this was a stretch, even for this show. There's no way the AFD would force an employee to promote a GoFundMe campaign, that's all kinds of legal trouble for them. The real AFD should rightly cry foul over this one.

2 hours ago, possibilities said:

I imagine the Firefox followers will rise up and pressure the Dept to reinstate Marjan. I also agree that they wouldn't force her to promote the GoFundMe. The legal case those grifters were threatening struck me as very weak, and it's also a bad precedent to set up the entire Dept for extortion over and over again if they don't fight it. 

Agree with all of the above. The Marjani drama was, well, "crazy." 

Wouldn't Grace get in as much "good trouble" as Marjani for going to a 9-1-1 caller's home? 
I will try to remember to ask my 9-1-1 dispatcher daughter next time we talk. 


 

18 hours ago, Athena5217 said:

I hope this is not goodbye for Marjan. . .

1 minute ago, tennisgurl said:

. I hope its not the end of her character,

Yes, I think we viewers are supposed to be tuning in to see how Marjani being alone in the station house when the crazy arsonist stole the call-radio comes into play.
Chekhovian call-radio theft alert!

[Court]

Look all. I posted last night but didn't do the thread properly when I started it. But this episode rightly pissed me off. All of it. Ugh. 

[eel21788]

5 hours ago, iMonrey said:

they are teetering dangerously close to sainthood with Grace knowing intuitively there's something going on at Linus's house and going to investigate in person and saving the day. 

As well as Tommy deciding over the phone that she was having a stroke. Hopefully, she got a CT scan once she arrived at the hospital because with other causes of increased intracranial pressure it might not have been a good idea to take her straight into surgery.

[eel21788]

41 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

I suspect that she'll come back in time to save the day when this creepy guy strikes.

Are we supposed to have forgotten about all the stolen ammonium nitrate, so we can be worried about this guy instead? 

[shapeshifter]

26 minutes ago, eel21788 said:

Are we supposed to have forgotten about all the stolen ammonium nitrate, so we can be worried about this guy instead? 

I did consider that the arsonist is the ammonium nitrate thief. Is that what you’re thinking too? 
And is the arsonist supposed to be Honor Dog founder O’Brien’s nephew? 
That is a lot for viewers to be expected to keep track of.

Edited February 22, 2023 by shapeshifter

[eel21788]

3 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

I did consider that the arsonist is the ammonium nitrate thief. Is that what you’re thinking too? 
And is the arsonist supposed to be Honor Dog founder O’Brien’s nephew? 
That is a lot for viewers to be expected to keep track of.

I did consider the possibility that the arsonist is the ammonium nitrate thief, but I would think if it was him, he would be using his AN stash to cause explosions that ignite the fires.

I do think that the nephew is going to end up being involved with the AN crime although I'm not sure if it will be by choice or because he was coerced.

[LaylaGirl]

8 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

I did consider that the arsonist is the ammonium nitrate thief. Is that what you’re thinking too? 
And is the arsonist supposed to be Honor Dog founder O’Brien’s nephew? 
That is a lot for viewers to be expected to keep track of.

I think the arsonist is the nephew. He told the realtor he had a wife and young son. I think he is setting fires so he can see what fire houses go to what locations and the time it takes them to respond by using the stolen radio. He was writing all of that down on a pad. My impression is he is still working with the Honor Dogs.

On another note - this whole episode was just ridiculous. No way would the Department make Marjan link to a fundraiser of any type. Those people did not even have a legit complaint.

And as an ex dispatcher I can confidently say that no way would Grace have ever driven over to the house of a caller - especially with her baby! That is so many kinds of wrong. The right thing to do would have been to send an officer for a welfare check after the second time the kid called. CPS is not going to go in and immediately remove a child in that kind of a situation unless it is warranted.

[Lady Calypso]

5 hours ago, LaylaGirl said:

And as an ex dispatcher I can confidently say that no way would Grace have ever driven over to the house of a caller - especially with her baby! That is so many kinds of wrong. The right thing to do would have been to send an officer for a welfare check after the second time the kid called. CPS is not going to go in and immediately remove a child in that kind of a situation unless it is warranted.

Yeah, her boss who told her that is definitely wrong on that front. No, they do not just swoop him at the mere sight of a pointy object on the counter, or whatever her boss told her would happen. They would only call CPS if there was legit danger to the child, and would Grace not want CPS to step in in that case? 

Definitely a weird plot, just to get Grace in the action of a case. Grace taking the address of her caller to do a personal wellfare check would likely get her in trouble, so Judd encouraging her was odd. I know it's a TV show, and I know they really wanted Grace to do something this episode, and her heart was in the right place, but still. 

On the plus side, Judd and Charlie were cute together.

So, Marjan gets her centric episode, but now she's quit and we probably won't see her for a few episodes. On a better written ensemble, I might have hope for an arc where we see her on her time away from the station. But, let's face it, Lone Star knows exactly who their favourites are and who their tossaways are, and Marjan won't be seen until they bring her back, and who knows when that'll be. They apparently need to spend more time seeing Owen save the day.

Although, given how much Owen we do get, this episode had him at his best, so that was kind of nice. If we have to get Owen, supportive Owen is good.

But yeah, I cannot imagine the department would stand behind the couple's Go Fund Me strategy. First off, this couple isn't powerful enough for the department to fear them winning any sort of case, if they DID sue. The case they would have against Marjan would be absolutely pointless. And they would be annoying to deal with, sure, but not impossible. So the department just now taking a stand, especially given all the shit Owen's done, it's just ridiculous.

So, Paul gains a potential new love interest in his old classmate. I mean, potential new love interest, in the sense that we MAY see them a couple of times a season, if this is the case. 

I think it's very obvious to me that the guy creeping around the station is the arsonist and also O'Brien's nephew who may or may not be testing out response times for the Honor Dogs. OR he's on his own mission and we STILL get stuck with the Honor Dogs plot all season. Yawn.

[Jillybean]

These episodes are getting stupider every week.

[Artsda]

Afd had no business brokering a deal that involved her personal social media and not extorting money from her followers.  They instead gave into people who ran a house into a bridge m 

Good for her for resigning, AFD deserves the backlash of the post. 

[cmfran]

So what happened to Tommy's preacher love interest? Or Carlos's annulment? 

[Bobcatkitten]

That was the dumbest storyline I have ever seen. I mean calling a woman crazy who wouldn't leave a moving/house on a roadway leads to Marjan leaving? I'm sorry, cities would laugh that lawsuit out the door. And frankly if they filed it a judge would laugh it out as well. 

Such lazy writing. They could have found a better reason if they needed Marjan to go off for a few weeks. 

[izabella]

13 hours ago, LtKelley said:

They can't ask her to publicly apologize on her social media and endorse a private go fund me. Not without opening themselves up to a HUGE lawsuit from Marjan.

Let's hope Marjan does exactly that.

[eel21788]

On 2/22/2023 at 4:21 PM, shapeshifter said:

I did consider that the arsonist is the ammonium nitrate thief. Is that what you’re thinking too? 
And is the arsonist supposed to be Honor Dog founder O’Brien’s nephew? 

After rewatching the episode, I think that is definitely what is happening. He did use some of the AN to blow up the school bus and all the mannequins in the opening scene. The guy he killed because he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time never got mentioned again, so that also still needs to be resolved. After he said he had a six year old son, that pretty much clinched the fact that he is O'Brien's nephew. 

After leaving that whole story line hanging, maybe we'll get some resolution tonight. I would hope it doesn't have to be a continuing plot for much longer. They need to get back to answering 911 calls and actually rescuing real people.

[AheadofStraight]

I just watched and with the mom/Linus, I was expecting them to take the kid away thinking she was drunk but then discover she has that syndrome where one ferments alcohol in the stomach without any actual drinking. (Looked it up: auto-brewery syndrome!) I've seen it on this type of show before but maybe it actually was this show (or the better parent version) lol!

[Kel Varnsen]

On 2/23/2023 at 8:36 AM, Lady Calypso said:

Definitely a weird plot, just to get Grace in the action of a case. Grace taking the address of her caller to do a personal wellfare check would likely get her in trouble, so Judd encouraging her was odd. I know it's a TV show, and I know they really wanted Grace to do something this episode, and her heart was in the right place, but still. 

The weirdest part of that whole plot was that Grace finds the mom unconscious and doesn't even think to call her first responder husband who is sitting in the car right outside. I mean I know Judd isn't a paramedic, but he certainly has way more first aid training than Grace does. And if he called Tommy he would be better able to understand what she is saying.